The first person to receive a heart transplant from a pig has died, two months after the groundbreaking experiment, the Maryland hospital that performed the surgery announced on Wednesday.

David Bennett, 57, died on Tuesday at the University of Maryland Medical Center. Doctors didn’t give an exact cause of death, saying only that his condition had begun deteriorating several days earlier. Mr. Bennett’s son praised the hospital for offering the last-ditch experiment, saying the family hoped it would help further efforts.

At first the pig heart was functioning, and the Maryland hospital issued periodic updates that Mr. Bennett seemed to be slowly recovering.

Mr. Bennett survived significantly longer than one of the last milestones — when Baby Fae, a dying infant, lived 21 days with a baboon’s heart in 1984.

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